THE NEW CRITERION:The November 2026 issue, edited by Roger Kimball, features major pieces including “Notes & Comments,” David Butterfield’s “The classical inheritance, III: Bound by the book,” Lionel Shriver’s “What do progressives really want?,” D. J. Taylor’s “Spark’s fire,” Cory L. Andrews’s “Hippolyte Taine,” and a collection of “New poems” by David Mason, Jehanne Dubrow, and Robert Chandler, alongside dedicated columns covering reflections, theater, art, music, media, fiction, book reviews, and a notebook segment.
Bound by the book by David Butterfield
What do progressives really want? by Lionel Shriver
Spark’s fire by D. J. Taylor
Hippolyte Taine & the haunting persistence of history by Cory L. Andrews
THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE: The 10.18.26 Issue features Brooke Jarvis walks across 20 islands near Stockholm on the archipelago trail; Dan Duane processes his father’s death by climbing in Yosemite; Jonathan Gluck goes fly fishing with 10 fellow cancer patients; Blair Braverman writes about an adventurer who set out to cross Canada and only his dogs came back; and more.
Lena Khalaf Tuffaha explains that her poems—written over a decade from a position of relative safety in the US—did not target a specific reader, but rather reflect an evolving, non-linear attempt to communicate across a broad and complex readership profoundly shaped by ongoing trauma and genocide.
In her new collection Killing Spree, poet Jorie Graham evokes the dual-headed Roman deity Janus to confront a precarious present by looking back at an out-of-reach past while facing a distressing, violent future.
“What do you want from a poem? Do you go to poems for facts and information, or do you seek out poems because they express singular observations in unpredictable language, stir the imagination, open up possibilities?” By Liane Strauss
“It’s the way of the world, new in place of the old, but still, all those trees and plants and vegetables and flowers, so good and lush and kind somehow.” By Mirza Waheed
“And you mustn’t forget to include Kay in your all-round felicitations; for you don’t need to take my word for it, you can find internal evidence in the book itself that but for her there would have been no seventh book.” By Robert Frost
We know that this monster El Niño will bring floods, droughts, cyclones and wildfires, but some governments aren’t putting in the necessary resources to prepare for disaster
This El Niño is forecast to end around June next year after smashing all records, but its impacts could persist indefinitely in some parts of the world By Michael Le Page
France has been rocked by huge youth protests in recent weeks over the state of high school education, bringing tens of thousands of people on to the streets.
The movement began with outrage over shoddy school conditions in a Paris banlieue, but has spread across the country as pupils voice their anger about a system they say is failing them.
For this week’s big story, Paris correspondent Angelique Chrisafis hears from protesters who feel abandoned by the French state. Angelique also looks at the evidence on students’ complaints of dilapidated buildings, teacher shortages, inequality and low investment.
Then, Alexander Hurst says fixing the broken education system should be just the start for an aloof political class if it is to finally pay attention to a generation who feel neglected.
Spotlight| The future of the death penalty Donald Trump has used the full might of the presidency to supercharge executions but, writes Ed Pilkington, an avalanche of mishaps has put the system’s flaws in the spotlight
Science| Sweet time A flurry of recent studies suggests that spending the first 1,000 days of life under sugar rationing may have left traces on people’s health more than seven decades later. Linda Geddes reports
Feature| The art of dismantling a second world war bomb British bomb disposal squads are being called to more unexploded devices than ever – and they risk their lives each time. Samira Shackle recounts the challenge they faced when two bombs were discovered on the same day
Opinion| A new era of instability The latest attack by Houthi rebels on Saudi Arabia may prove to be more calamitous for the region than the world imagines, says Nesrine Malik
Culture| Hungry like the werewolf Duran Duran talk to Alexis Petridis about 80s excess, tabloid scrutiny and their Halloween glow-up
The president is using barbaric spectacle as a political weapon – and the damage will go on long after he has gone
Let us call it what it is: snuff politics. In an interview with far right conspiracy theorist Jack Posobiec posted by streaming channel Real America’s Voice last Thursday, US defense secretary Pete Hegseth announced the first state-sanctioned public execution in America for 90 years.
The godmother of ‘alternative facts’ assured me the president loved Zelensky – just as he was stabbing him in the back with Putin
I met Kellyanne Conway for the first time last week, when she and I were on a panel together, looking ahead to next month’s US midterm elections. She, you may recall, was the Trump senior aide who, on Term 1 Day 1, as the newly elected US president was falsely claiming more people attended his inauguration than Barack Obama’s, let us know we would have to get used to “alternative facts,” whatever truth photographic or any other evidence might reveal.
The shrieks of fury from Johnson, Badenoch, Farage and co speak volumes as the prime minister confronts the disaster they wrought
It’s an old truism in sport and in politics that the best defence is a good attack. That’s certainly something the UK’s leading Brexiteers seem to have taken to heart over the last decade – not least in their relentless fury at anyone who disagrees with their own personal vision for Brexit, or even anyone who just points out that none of them seem to agree on what, exactly, that looks like.
News, Views and Reviews For The Intellectually Curious
